Sir,
Could it be that the answer to the mysterious disappearance of the golden plover and other moorland birds that Iain Thornber laments (Morvern Lines, The Oban Times, July 28) is due to climate change and an excess of predators?
On a local estate where, in the first half of the 19th century, they shot thousands of grouse, this had declined by the end of the century to where no grouse were shot. Winters had become milder and so a huge increase in tick numbers.